1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus for identifying material transporting pipes which ar used in the apparatuses including a pneumatic force type device for transporting powdered or granular materials (hereinafter referred to simply as materials), raw materials for plastic, medicine, processed food and the like, by means of sucking or pressuring-feeding transport gas such as air and the like, a dryer for drying the material down to the desired moisture percentage, and a die temperature controller in a synthetic resin molding machine, or pipes which feed/return heating medium, more specifically to pipe identifying apparatus, in use for the pneumatic force type device for transporting the materials, which detects and identifies whether or not the pipes having been connected to receiving parts thereof are desired ones, when connecting a plurality of adequately selected pipes thereto.
2. Prior Art
The examples of the conventional pipe identifying apparatus are: As the first example, as shown in FIG. 7, an arrangement is known in which a switch c such as proximity switch is provided on the receiving part e of one material reservoir d, whereby a connection of the pipe a is confirmed by an action by the switch c, when inserting one optionally selected pipe a among a plurality of pipes a, a, . . . for transporting the materials of a different kind.
Also as the second example, as shown in FIGS. 8 and 9, an arrangement is known in which connection tubes b are connected to a plurality of pipes a, a, . . . respectively for transporting the materials of a different kind, and the switch c is provided on each of the connection tubes b, whereby, when connecting the adequately selected connection tube b is connected to the receiving part e of the one material reservoir d, it is enabled to confirm by way of a lead wire f from the outside not only whether or not the connection state is proper but also a classification of the connected pipe a by means of a corresponding actuation of the switch c.
There may be sometimes found case in the first conventional example, where since although a completion of connecting the pipe a to the receiving part e can be confirmed, whether or not the connected pipe is the desired one a cannot be identified, an erroneous connection of the pipe a other than the desired one thereto takes place.
If the pipe a other than the desired one is errorneously connected to the receiving part e, the undesired materials and heating medium result in being transported into the material reservoir d. There may, for example, take place problematic point that in the plastic molding, the materials other than the desired materials to be molded ma be transported to the synthetic resin molding machine.
On the other hand, the second conventional example may incur a problematic point that although the aforementioned problem in the first example can be solved, in addition to the requirement that the switches c and the lead wires c whose quantity is equal to the number of connection tubes b, i.e. the actual number of pipes a are needed, an increase in the actual number of lead wires f, made proportionally to an increase in the actual number of tubes a, complicates a wiring of the lead wires f, f, . . . as well as makes it unavoidably difficult to fabricate a control panel into which the lead wires f, f, . . . are concentrated as small as possible.
The present invention is to provide the pipe identifying apparatus in use for the transportation of the powder materials by the pneumatic force, the apparatus solving all of the afore-mentioned problematic points in the first and second conventional examples.